State Race Has Garden Grove Council in Tight Quarters

When Mark Leyes changed his lifelong party affiliation a few years ago and became a Republican, there was little doubt that the Garden Grove City Council member had politics on his mind.

When he failed in his bid for a vacant Orange County Board of Supervisors seat last year, his council colleagues and political allies presumed that Leyes would persevere, probably by running for the 68th Assembly District seat.

The surprises started when two other Garden Grove council members announced plans of their own to seek the Republican nomination for the Assembly seat, now held by Leyes’ boyhood friend Curt Pringle. With that move by Ho Chung and Ken Maddox, a majority of the City Council is now running for the same state office.

To add to the complications, Mayor Bruce Broadwater had hinted that he was considering a run for the Democratic nomination for the same post. He recently said he was no longer considering that but has his work cut out for him on the council.

“At election time things get stirred up, but I don’t recall anything like this,” Broadwater said.

To make sure that his fellow council members are not tempted to use televised meetings as an opportunity to espouse their platforms, Broadwater said he plans to add some control measures for the biweekly sessions.

Among other ideas, Broadwater said, he is considering shuffling the council agenda so that specific topics precede open discussion and limiting what he terms the “political flow.”

Observers, however, say that politics is already seeping into council chambers and that there could be real fireworks after Leyes, Chung and Maddox file candidacy papers for the June 2 election.

Charles Mitchell, chairman of the Central Orange County chapter of the political group United We Stand, is among regulars in the audience at Garden Grove council meetings. Already, he said, there have been occasions when the three have “spoken past the issues of Garden Grove.”

“The fact [that] they have three members of the council vying for the same job is bound to create additional tensions,” Mitchell said. “I’d like to think the focus of the council members is on the city and not their political ambitions. I hope they have tried to maintain that.”

Maddox said the situation is bound to put all three candidates in the spotlight.

“We should expect a closer examination of the actions that we take for issues involving the city because we are running for a higher office,” he said. “I think any issue of public policy is fair game.”

Leyes said he has been criticized for heated council exchanges with Chung. “A couple of people have commented that I had come on too strong, and it’s not fair to hold people up to my standard,” he said.

But “we all feel compelled to make comments on issues,” he said. “I have been accused of taking those opportunities to promote myself. But the best way to impress the public is by doing a good job.”

Leyes has apologized for some of his pointed statements but said he plans to continue challenging his rivals if they “take advantage” of public meetings.

Chung was out of town and unavailable for comment, but he has said publicly that he is tired of attacks on himself and others. The councilman lobbied for and won an official code of conduct for public Garden Grove meetings.

Veteran City Councilman Bob Dinsen, the only member of the forum not to discuss a run for the assembly seat, said he is surprised that his colleagues would square off against each other and split the Garden Grove vote. And he expresses dismay over the inevitable tension.

“There’s an undertone of this all the time,” Dinsen said.

He summed up the inevitable sniping: “Leyes always has to get the last word in. Chung is working to try to let people think he knows what he’s doing, while Maddox doesn’t say much unless he gets a chance to say something opposite of what I’ve said.”